Lonely Planet  Guide to Melbourne 

Arrived at 6 a.m, were glad to finally get off the plane. Then a 20-30 minute wait for our bags.

For AUD 25 (plus AUD 2 tip), a taxi took us to our hotel. At first we thought the taxi-driver had taken us to the wrong hotel – how should we know that it had changed its name in the meantime??

We had an early breakfast first, as our room wasn’t ready yet. Right after breakfast we could move in and enjoyed a hot shower and a change of clothes. More or less refreshed, but still half asleep, we walked the short distance to Bourke Street in the centre (15 minutes) and browsed wearily through a zillion shops, or so it seemed. At the Hard Rock Café we treated ourselves to Mai Tais, although we don’t usually drink alcohol at lunchtime… We still wonder how we ever lived through that first day Down Under. At 6:33 p.m., we were already back in our hotel room, with 2 subways (yummy sandwiches), feeling extremely jetlagged. We couldn’t even muster the courage to have a beer at the hotel bar.

We’re still tired, but not nearly as much as yesterday.

Right after breakfast, we went to see Victoria Market Place. The variety of foodstuffs from all over the world is amazing!! Fresh fish (some of which we had never seen before), meat – beef, pork, kangaroo, crocodile, emu, lamb – rump steak at AUD 6,99/kg, fruit and veggies – some exotic ones for European eyes, too, such as Chinese broccoli.

Apart from those culinary wonders, you can buy all kinds of souvenirs and clothes at the Market. We jumped to the occasion and bought genuine Overlander Bushie Hats– Torsten’s being made from water buffalo, and Claudia’s from bronco.

In the afternoon we strolled around town. Melbourne is quite nice, although not exciting, especially as we’re anxious to see the outback. The part we liked best was the walk along the Yarra River, even though it was quite chilly down there.

We had a dinner of sausages, bacon, fries, salad, fresh peas and carrots in a greasy-looking snack bar. The food was good, though (no „side-effects" J ).

For convenience reasons we had breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant and ordered the „light breakfast". And waited. And waited…. Then enquired with one of the waiter’s passing by, who told us that we should help ourselves from the buffet. Oh, well….

At Budget (Britz), they gave us a brief introduction to our campervan, and before long we finally hit the road – unfortunately, they had given us wrong directions. We were going north instead of south J . Half an hour later, we „found" the Princes Freeway and were on our way to the Great Ocean Road.

Torsten hit his hand on the door in search of the gear-lever, set the wipers in motion instead of flashing and vice versa. Not only did he have to drive on the left-hand side of the road, but he also had to get used to the fact that the array of certain appliances in the car is the opposite of what he (we) are used to….

As if that were not enough, the road was quite winding and rather narrow. It seemed even narrower as we met a lot of large trucks transporting lumber.

We arrived at the Twelve Apostles by sundown. In the soft light of late afternoon, they looked very picturesque and very beautiful. Pictures taken, we drove the remaining 3 km to Port Campbell to check in on the campsite.

None of us felt like cooking any more, so we both had a hamburger at the Port Campbell Take Away, apparently the only place to go in Port Campbell. It was a nice, but tiring day, and we’ll probably go to bed soon.

P.S. We saw a scarecrow in a field, sitting on a bale of straw, wearing a bushie hat and holding a sign saying „ G’Day…"

We prepared our first meal on the gas stove in our camper this morning. Claudia was today’s driver, and had the same initial problems as Torsten yesterday with confusing switches J .

About 80 km before Mount Gambier, we had to leave the highway and turn onto a road with two lanes in each direction. For once, Claudia wanted to know what it feels like to drive in the wrong lane…. fortunately, Torsten could convince her that that wasn’t such a good idea after all….

The coastline is magnificent: steep cliffs, bizarre rocks and many scenic lookouts. We saw „London Bridge", a huge rock resembling a bridge. A couple of years ago, the stretch of rock connecting this natural bridge to the mainland crumbled into the sea below – leaving behind two confused and scared, but unharmed, tourists on the bridge. A helicopter rescued them shortly afterwards.

Another „rocky" sight: Martyr Bay. Torsten thought the huge rocks off-shore looked like coffins.

At the „Bay of Islands", we turned back after finding out that the lookout was a walk away (we are not lazy, but had we taken the time to walk to that lookout, we wouldn’t have made it to Mount Gambier in daylight. You should, whenever possible, avoid to drive in the dark in the outback. Unless you want to experience the thrill of bumping into kangaroos on unlit roads….).

The countryside was a mixture of flat plains, hills and mountains, with the odd farmhouse in between. Most farmers seem to have either an old limousine or a quite new 4WD. The driveways were unsealed.

We saw lots of cattle and sheep, but almost no sign of human life in a vast country. At regular intervals, the highway was dotted with road signs indicating the possible crossing of koalas and kangaroos. Didn’t see them in the flesh, though.

After a cruise around town, we finally found the campsite in Mount Gambier. It’s large, clean and quite sophisticated-looking, compared to the European campsites we’re used to. We took an „en suite site" for just AUD 15, meaning that we have our private bath-cabin.

Next to the campsite lies the „Blue Lake", a crater lake. We’ll take a look and surely some pics tomorrow.

Claudia found a small spider in our toilet – Torsten had to kill it. After all, Australia’s the country with the most venomous and poisonous animals on Earth! We saw our first kangaroo today (the poor thing had been run over by a car) and a couple of parrots.

Lonely Planet Guide to Adelaide

Claudia woke up frozen after a cold night (0°C). She already felt better after a hot shower, but it still took her more than one hour with the air conditioning set on maximum heat (after take-off; there’s no air condition in the „living quarter" of the camper!) to defrost.

Blue Lake, a very deep crater lake, is beautiful. The sun shone brightly, a rainbow hung over the lake, and veils of mist still hovered in the neighbouring valley.

Driving was easy today. Still didn’t see any koalas or kangaroos, just the road signs. What we did see were different species of colourful parrots.

Again, we saw thousands of sheep on 5 or 6 farms. A herd of sheep travelling on the highway forced us to take a short break….. the shepherd drove alongside in a car and let his sheep and dogs do the walking J .

Next stop were the Coorong Lakes (a national park), whose water is a mixture of salt and sweet water, as they are separated from the ocean by just a small stretch of dunes. A variety of birds is to be found in the park, e.g. pelicans. There are not many lookouts along the highway, the best thing to do would be to rent a 4WD and drive into the dunes (permitted). We did not take the risk to drive off-road with our 2WD campervan. You can give it a try, of course, but with a 2WD car you’re not insured when driving on unsealed roads).

We still managed to take a few nice pics of the lakes and some plants. In Tailem Bend, we stopped for a snack and fuel.

The land was flat as a pancake for a stretch of 360 (three-hundred sixty) km. Rolling hills and finally mountains followed.

A short detour took us to Hahndorf, Australia’s oldest German settlement, founded in 1839, current population 1660. It’s not very German (any more?), except for some buildings, the food offered (Bratwurst, German Kuchen and Torten) and German crafts. The weather was Indian-Summer-like: sunny and mild.

When approaching Adelaide from the south, you make the rather breathtaking experience (at least with a campervan, even a small one) to drive the last km on a winding, steep road down a hill, or should we call it mountain?

The Highway Bypass took us straight to the Beachfront Campsite, next to the old part and situated directly on the beach! One of the many campsites we can recommend.

The beach is long and wide, with fine white sand and hardly a soul around.

It’s not much warmer today than yesterday, but at least it didn’t rain.

This morning, Claudia was only half-frozen. The temperature at 7.45 a.m. was –1°C!

Do you know how to turn your en-suite site bath-cabin into a mud hole? It’s fairly easy: all you need is some rain at night, resulting in muddy soil (the most important ingredient) and a very hot shower…. J .

We got an early start today.

To the north of Adelaide, fruits and vegetables are grown.

We headed north on the Wakefield Road, through flat country, savannah and bush.

After long and thorough consideration, we did not turn off to the Barossa Valley, as this would have meant an additional loop of 2-3 hours. The main attraction of the Valley are its numerous vineyards, which we aren’t that interested in anyway.

The kangaroo-road signs should better be legible for the roos themselves. Saw another two run-over ones today.

We passed through endless, brown and dry plains, the Flinders Rangers hovering on the horizon, the odd road train passing us now and then, roadhouses, scattered villages (e.g. Port Wakefield, pop. 600, weird: a port without water???? The road train route starts here), blue skies with scattered clouds and… the first 2 (!) bush flies (who, contrary to the common house fly, do not spread diseases. They simply are a pest, as they will fly directly into or onto any moist and uncovered part of your body, as nostrils, eyes and ears. Our tip: Aeroguard lotion). This is what we imagined the outback to be like (what we didn’t know then: it would get better and better and better…. J ). Tractors in the fields were easily recognisable for miles by the dust they raised.

By the way: keep your distance to road trains. Their drivers are generally friendly, but they have a tight schedule, weigh a hell of a lot more than your whimsy car or camper and have a loooooong braking distance. Moreover, they’re likely to drive faster than you do and tend to keep their speed, no matter what the landscape looks like. Tiny detail: in South Australia, they may be up to 36 m long.

In Port Pirie, a friendly village with beautiful, small houses from colonial times (i.e. 19^th century), we shopped for food at Woolies. Highly recommendable for outstanding food quality. Rather unusual for us: beef was the least expensive meat. Claudia bought jogging pants for the cold desert nights J .

We continued our journey across the dry, but nonetheless interesting, landscape. There was quite a lot of traffic today, up to 10 vehicles on the road at the same time…!! We passed a salt lake, but there was no possibility to stop and take a longer look and a picture. Too bad.

The campsite in Port Augusta is situated directly on Spencer Gulf, and we have a site with a view to the Gulf. Unfortunately, they don’t have on en-suite sites. By now, we’re used to being the only non-Australian tourists on the campsites so far. Doesn’t bother us.

We saw a lot of 4WD equipped for the real outback experience in Port Augusta.

As usual, we saw lots of sheep and some parrots. Tonight we’ll have a good, large pepper steak – yummy!! And a cold Aussie beer.

Today’s our last day in the „Festival State". We were lost in the seemingly endless desert of northern South Australia. The land was mainly flat as a pancake, low-growing bushes were the most elevated feature we saw, apart from the odd rolling hill. The further north we came, the more often we saw large stretches of sand in different shades of brown. Here and there some gumtrees (eucalyptus; there are some 400-800 species, information on the exact number varies).

Along the road were melon-like fruit, unidentified so far. We have no idea what that might be.

We passed two more salt lakes, and this morning Claudia saw four kangaroos – alive and well!

We also saw some large birds of prey (as we found out later: wedge-tailed eagles). Beautiful animals!

Our first pit-stop, 179 km from Port Augusta, was Pimba. There’s a roadhouse every 200 km (roughly). Second stop was Glendambo. The most interesting fact about that place is its population: 30 humans, 22,500 sheep J . It’s a roadhouse with a large campsite and a motel (and a sheep station).

We repeatedly crossed dry waterbeds today.

For the last 200 km or so it was quite windy. When meeting road trains, we would slow down, fearing to be blown of the highway otherwise. You can feel a strong suction when they overtake you or pass you by.

The closer we came to Coober Pedy, the more campers we saw on the road. We even saw one cyclist!

Coober Pedy is the hub of the South Australian desert and the world’s most important opal town.

We checked into the the Opal Inn campsite, and then wanted to fill up our gas bottle. The bloke at the first petrol station we went to didn’t know how to do that, either. Fortunately, we found another station, the guy there checked the bottle and found that something (probably dust) had blocked the vents. He didn’t charge us anything. Thanks again, mate!

We deposited our van on the site and walked around town, ending up in an opal store, where Claudia could bring to good use our Budget (Britz) Super Saver Card – 10% discount. The store is owned by a German-Australian couple. She came to Australia 15 years ago on vacation, met her husband here and staid. After leaving a nice amount of money in the opal store, we took a closer look at some of the buildings typical for Coober Pedy. They’re built into the hills or ground and are called „dugouts". Most of the locals still live like this. The climate in Coober Pedy is mainly hot to scorching and dry, with frequent dust/sand storms. The advantages of living underground are evident: the temperature stays the same all year around, approx. 25°C. Same goes for humidity. You also find an underground church, underground shops and a hotel with some underground rooms. The hotel’s bar is underground, too, and a nice feature is their underground tunnel telling you the story of opal mining.

We bought some hot dogs in a snack bar. Two blokes in the bar were a bit suspicious-looking: dusty clothes, tattoos, a ramshackle car parked outside, a pit bull terrier waiting for them on the porch. In short: the kind of guys you wouldn’t want to meet at home. But, as it turned out, they were really nice, wishing us a nice day when leaving, and their dog was just interested in basking in the sun. Live and learn. Fine feathers don’t always make fine birds!

All around town you will see the sand mounds of the opal mines. The mines themselves are narrow, but fairly deep, up to 20 m, and therefore it is rather dangerous to walk into the fields.

The largest opal ever found is from Coober Pedy, weighing 3.5 kg (about 17,000 carat) and is displayed, uncut, in Melbourne.

We love this immense landscape without any recognizable trace of human habitation. In some of the places we stopped along the road, we didn’t see anything but nature (but for the bitumen band of the highway) and didn’t hear anything but the soothing sound of the wind.

We drove our longest stage today – 759 km, taking turns behind the wheel and thus avoiding long breaks.

Coober Pedy’s opal mine mounds shone pink in the rising sun.

We saw some 15 wedge-tailed eagles today, as well as the (sadly) usual, run-over kangaroos and lively parrots, parakeets and cockatoos.

The landscape constantly changed from barren to woodland and from flat to hilly. The soil gradually became redder, the further we approached Uluru (Ayers Rock). At Uluru itself, it’s a silky-feeling, very fine, deep-red dust.

Once we saw some cattle (this is unfenced stock country) crossing the highway at a gallop. Now and then we could see the remains of one that had clearly been run over by a vehicle.

Traffic was sparse today, but we got the impression that there are much more campers than road trains on the road. At least today.

At stage km 403, we left South Australia and entered the Northern Territory („nature territory", population 158,000).

At Kulgera Roadhouse, we fuelled up and refreshed ourselves with two huge Hamburgers The Lot (= beef patty, various veggies, bacon, fried egg … fresh and oh-so-good!!!!). On the parking lot, we saw our first 50m-road train (length varies in the different states).

At Erldunda, another roadhouse, we turned left onto the Lasseter Highway leading to Uluru. It’s a bit narrower than the Stuart Hwy. On the 244 km to Yulara (Ayers Rock Resort), the only human habitation you pass are 2 roadhouses.

After about 150 km, we thought to see Uluru, stopped at once, marvelled at the sight of that big rock and excitedly took first pictures. It turned out to be an April’s fool – it’s not Uluru, but a table mountain called Mount Conner (Atila), beautiful nonetheless, but not mentioned in any brochure or book we had read in preparation of our journey. We were rather satisfied and relieved to learn later on that we were not the first ones to mistake it for Uluru, and we’ll surely not be the last ones!

After checking in on one of the quite spacious sites on the campground, we went straight to one of the two elevated lookouts in the resort and marvelled at the sight of Uluru at sundown (distance: 15 km). There are no words to describe the otherworldly beauty of this magnificent rock in the last light of day.

The resort itself is huge, with a couple of hotels, a campsite, a shopping centre, a service station, a heliport, a police station, a fire brigade, the flying doctors, a post office, rental car agencies… On the way back to the campsite, Torsten made fun of Claudia, as she was a bit scared to walk the last few hundred meters, where the lamps lighting the way didn’t work. She quickly overcame her fear of venomous snakes hiding behind bushes, just waiting for her to come along….

This morning we had breakfast outside for the first time. Afterwards, we picked up the Daihatsu Mira we rented at one of the resort’s rental car agencies and went to see Ulura and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas).

To get into the National Park costs AUD 15/person, the entrance is valid for 5 days.

Kata Tjuta was our first stop. An impressive array of huge, red rocks; here and there plants grow in cracks. The plants growing around the rocks were quite green, we did even see some flowers – it must have rained recently. The play of light and shadows is ever so beautiful. Sadly, there was some rubbish lying around. Why is it that some people have to spoil everything? Don’t they know what a trash can’s is for?

We saw a dingo from a distance.

We circled Uluru once – a loop of 9 km. Awesome!!! The are no words to describe this gorgeous monolith. You have to see it for yourself.

By the way: we did not climb Uluru. In fact, Uluru was returned to the Aboriginals years ago. They ask that tourists do not climb it, as they believe it is alive and one of their sacred sites, where they still perform ceremonies.

Each year, tourists die at Uluru – from heart attacks, from heat-strokes or because they fall off the Rock. At the entrance to the Park, you will receive a brochure with guidelines. Please obey them. They all make sense.

In the Park’s Cultural Centre one can learn interesting facts about the culture of the Aboriginals and their way of life. It’s amazing to see and read how they find food and water in this hostile landscape!

Claudia bought a hat pin and Torsten a badge saying „I didn’t climb Uluru". And we‘re proud of that.

Respect for other people and their beliefs is more important than the most beautiful view.

We started early at 7.30 a.m. in light rain (!!!!!).

The landscape remained the same throughout the day, desert with bushes and spinifex.

It was windy today. The at first overcast skies cleared up during the day, and the sun shone brightly over Alice Springs. On our way, we saw wedgies and flocks of budgerigars. A cow crossed the street, although it didn’t have the right of way J .

About 100 km before Alice Springs, the MacDonnell Ranges came into sight. We passed a road sign warning of crossing camels. What we at first took for a good joke is absolutely serious. As a matter of fact, more camels (when speaking of camels in Oz, one means dromedaries, to be exact) live in Australia than in the Sahara Desert. In addition, Australia is the only country in the world with a wild camel (i.e. dromedary) population. Camel caravans were the first road trains in Australia. After the introduction of the train and the truck to Central Australia, they were not needed any more and were simply released into the wild. From what we heard, they are the only introduced species (or ‚foreign invaders‘ as they are also called) that does not harm native fauna and flora. The famous train, the „Ghan" was named after the camel drovers, who came from Afghanistan together with their animals.

On approaching Alice Springs from the south, you pass through Heavitree Gap, a gap in the McDonnell Ranges. Although Alice has a population of 15,000 only, it feels like a big city here in the outback. Todd Mall, its shopping mall, is quite nice.

We didn’t like the Stuart Caravan Park too much, as the sites were small and you stumble over ‚don’t do‘ signs everywhere. It is clean, though and quite ok for one night.

We took a picture of a „Road Trains – 50 m long" sign, as otherwise nobody at home would believe us that they are that long.

Torsten took a closer look at the „melons". We still couldn’t figure them out. They are either yellow and round or green and oval. He couldn’t even crack them by jumping on them. Unbelievable.

We took off in good weather today and stopped a few km further on to enjoy the sight of the MacDonnell Ranges basking in the first light of day.

At first, the landscape was hilly, but soon became flat again, covered with a thick carpet of spinifex cushions. Take care: this grass, inedible even for camels, has sharp, tiny spikes on its leaves, perfect for attaching itself to clothes or skin (ouch!). The trees weren‘t much higher than the grass. Termite mounds became more and more numerous, sometimes standing close together.

At 7.50 a.m. we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5°S, 133.8°E, for those interested) and are therefore in the tropics now.

We passed the ruins of an old homestead and of an old well (dug in the 19^th century) on our way to the historic telegraph station (built 1872) at Barrow Creek; as well as one of the Stuart Memorials.

Again, we saw wedgies and budgies, and the odd dead cow or dead kangaroo as usual.

Unusual was the sighting of a brave (or mad?) man who was walking along the highway, pulling a tiny cart with his provisions.

The sight of the day were Devil’s Marbles, huge granite blocks, about 110 km before Tennant Creek. On pictures, you usually see two or three of them – and always the same ones – but there really are dozens, if not hundreds, of them! Magnificent, especially those that were split by water and heat. Some actually do look like a giant’s marbles. We and some Americans, who work for the US Embassy in Canberra, were the only visitors.

Tennant Creek (‚Desert Town‘) is a small village, population 3,500, of remote interest. For the first and last time, we saw more Aboriginals than white people on the streets.

Had a delicious Hamburger The Lot in a small snack bar – we’re addicted to them. Most shops were closed due to some event in the region. From Bill Allen Lookout, you can see for miles over Central Australia. We planned to look at Peko Mine, an old copper mine, but the last tour for the day had already departed. Tennant Creek is an old copper and gold town, although you wouldn’t guess right away. Nickname of the T.C. region: „Heart of Gold".

While strolling around the grounds of the mine, two blokes at a barbecue addressed us, asking us to join them for „the best steaks in the Territory", at AUD 8/person. We declined politely, saying we just wanted to look around a bit. Reply: „Sure, looking around don’t cost nothing."

The Caravan Park is beautiful, very clean, its owners very nice.

At 7 a.m. we hit the Stuart Hwy again, the initially strong wind fortunately calmed down later on – the campervan is more sensitive to wind than a limousine J .

The weather was great, warm, blue skies, a few scattered clouds. The landscape varied between flat plain and softly rolling hills. The vegetation became denser and greener, the trees higher – mostly gumtrees and the odd palm tree (we supposed they have been planted sometime). There were lots of termite mounds, some of them up to 1.60 m tall.

We turned of the Stuart Hwy to drive the 3 km to Daly Waters, featuring the allegedly oldest pub in the Northern Territory. Yes, there are indeed all kinds of memorabilia on the walls and the ceiling, such as beer mats, number plates, bills of different currencies, business cards and, last not least, bras and panties. It’s worth the detour, this pub and its owners and regulars are what you (or: we) expect to see in the outback. It reminded us of the Walkabout Creek pub of the Crocodile Dundee movies. We loved it!

On our way back, we saw the famous Stuart Tree, which proved to be a disappointment, as it‘s dead and doesn’t have any branches left, and red-tailed black cockatoos.

Our next pit-stop was at Renner Springs Roadhouse, housed in a historic pub.

In Katherine, our stop for the next two nights, the climate is tropical. This evening we sat outside our campervan, with a citronella candle between us to keep of the mosquitoes, dressed in shorts and thongs. Isn’t that great??

Right after breakfast we drove to nearby Springvale Homestead, today home to a tea store and a caravan park. Very interesting was the flood mark from February 1997, about 6-7 m above today’s water level of the Katherine River. Wow!

We finally learned where the rubbish we saw now and then in trees along the road came from. It is not a weird Aussie joke, but the remains of the last flood. It’s hard to imagine the vast and flat-looking Centre of Australia to be flooded up to 2-3 meters….

We had to cancel our plans to visit the School of the Air, as there were no guided tours today. Shoot! At least our neighbour on the campsite told us that children can attend the school of the air up to 7^th or 8^th grade (for any further education they have to go to boarding schools), and that teacher and student may be as far apart from another as 900 (nine hundred) km! He also told us that the melons we saw are called patty melons, but are inedible for humans.

We booked ourselves in on a 4-hour boat tour through Katherine Gorge (AUD 41/person). What can we say? That Gorge is simply … gorgeous!!!!! A true beauty! We saw 3 of its 13 gorges and had to switch boats three times, as at this time of the year the water level is too low to drive straight through.

Our tour guide was quite nice, but spoke like a US auctioneer – as it turned out, even Aussies couldn’t understand him! A bloke from Sydney asked us once, if we could understand anything, in any case he couldn’t. At the end of the tour, the tour guide said „end of tape". Anyway, the Gorge is amazingly beautiful. We didn’t see any crocs, but passed some of their rest areas. You can’t miss them, in case you rent a canoe to paddle the Gorge on your own, as there are signs on all of them: „Crocodile Resting Area – Do Not Enter".

Today we finally got real close to two living wallabies!!!!! We also saw: a cormorant, 2 goannas (huge lizards), fruit bats and a multi-coloured parakeet.

Today’s driving was easy-going, the vegetation rather dense, with blackened patches in between, must be controlled bushfires. The termite mounds are getting bigger and bigger. We saw some that were about 3 m tall!

In Pine Creek, an old gold rush town, we briefly stopped to look at an artificial lake covering an old gold mine and visited the historic train station. There, you can take step into an old passenger car, look at an old locomotive and the historic post office. They have one of the first refrigerators there, it’s quite funny to see how they used to cool foodstuffs in the past. Torsten bought an old sleeper bolt as a souvenir, which at the same time serves as a whistle, allegedly to warn workers of approaching superiors or  to whistle to pretty women. Truth or myth? J

A few km further on, we turned into Kakadu National Park, World Heritage Area. As we started early today, and had to drive less than 300 km, we checked into the campsite at noon already. It was so hot today (36°C!!) that the slightest movement spurred our transpiration system to maximum output. We did what we judged the best thing to do: sat in the shade of our campervan, moved as little as possible and drank lots of cold sodas. On the campsite, we saw a miniature lizard (alrighty, not very exciting) and some red-tailed black cockatoos lazily feeding in the trees on the neighbouring site.

Note: We read in the newspaper that two days ago, at a temperature of +4°C, some snow fell at Uluru. Not even the Aboriginals, with their history dating back up to 40,000 years, have no records of snowfall at Uluru. Actually, the locals had to ask European tourists, who confirmed that those flakes were indeed snow.

This morning we took off to explore Kakadu as far as you can explore it without a 4x4. We cancelled our initial plans to participate in a ranger-led bushwalk at 6 a.m. to sleep an additional hour. A decision we regretted later L .

We paid a short visit to the neighbouring Cultural Centre, once again learning interesting details about the local Aboriginal tribe.

Next stop was Nourlangie Rock. There are two tracks of different lengths, we took the shorter one, for which you still have to calculate 45 minutes walking. Be sure to wear a hat and take some water to be on the safe side. The scenery along the track is beautiful, as well as the numerous rock paintings. You have a wonderful view to the home of the Thunder God (ahem – we forgot his name…), one of the „dangerous sacred sites" of the Aboriginals.

Note for movie addicts: „Crocodile Dundee" was shot in Kakadu, some scenes at Nourlangie Rock.

Kakadu’s only village, Jabiru (pop. 1,100) has nothing special to offer except a small shopping plaza and some uranium mines. The latter are the cause of heated debates between the Government, the Aboriginals and ecologists. It is bizarre – of all things, uranium mines in a national park, which at the same time is a World Heritage Area, endangering that status????

We then returned to the campsite, just in time to take a leak and refresh ourselves before the 2-hour Yellow Water Tour, booked this morning in the campsite’s office, departed.

That tour is a must if you come to Kakadu! A flat-bottom aluminium boat takes you across the billabong (floodplains) of a tributary of the Alligator River. We booked the sunset tour, departing at 4.30 p.m.

Our tour-guide, Jason, was excellent. He made frequent photo-stops, pointed out lots of animals and plants and had an explanation and answer to everything.

We saw lots of different species of birds, e.g. kingfishers, Jabirus (Australia’s only stork and a rather rare sight, only distinguishing feature: males have black eyes, females have yellow eyes), ducks and geese, white-bellied sea eagles and many more. The billabong was covered with water lilies and many other water plants.

And we also saw the most amazing and at the same time most dangerous species of this habitat: Salt Water Crocodiles, in short: salties. Many of them in the water, often mistaken for floating logs, some on the land, basking in the sun. According to Jason, some where about 4-5 m long. The formula: length of head X 6-7 = total length. The latest counts of the local croc population came to 107 salties and only 4 Freshwater Crocs (also called Johnston Crocodiles). Freshies are harmless to humans (unless you step on them J ), but salties have been known to take humans. So better be careful. Heed the signs! Don’t carelessly jump into any Northern waterways without consulting with the locals, or it might well be your last time. You don’t see them and they are faster than you are! Don’t let children play near the waters edge, hitch your tent at least 5 m from the waters edge, don’t let dogs near the water (salties love them, too), and when in a boat, don’t let any items including your limbs hang overboard. You wouldn’t want to loose them.

Salties may live up to 80-100 years old and grow up to 7 m in length, weighing almost a ton. The largest salty ever recorded in Yellow Waters had a length of 5.5 m. Their habitat is any kind of water, be it salt or sweet, including the open ocean. Their staple diet in Yellow Water is Barramundi, that delicious huge fish (which starts life as a male and at some point in life, we forgot when, switches its gender and becomes a female). They seldom take waterfowl or a horse – there are some horse pastures bordering the water.

Salties may stay submerged between one and two hours, the female lays her eggs in a self-build nest and guards it. We heard that the local Aboriginals will take eggs from that nest without disturbing the mother! And you wouldn’t want to get into the way of a salty mum, as salties are extremely aggressive during the breeding (= wet) season!

The water level of Yellow Water during the wet is 2.5 m higher than at at this time of the year. Amazing how the plants can survive – today, they might be standing on almost dry land and tomorrow they’re completely submerged!

We didn’t see any water buffaloes, although they used to be numerous in this area, to an extent that they turned the surroundings into savannah. They, too, are one of the foreign invaders harming native fauna and flora, and were shot in great numbers in the first half of the 20^th century.

The tour ended with a beautiful sunset over the billabong.

It cost us AUD 25/person and was worth every single cent! As mentioned before, an absolute must.

Lonely Planet Guide to Darwin

This morning, we started on the last leg with our campervan, *huge sigh*.

On our way out, we stopped at Ubirr Rock to walk the trail and look at aboriginal rock paintings. Then there was no turning back: without enthusiasm, we drove Arnhem Highway in direction of Darwin, to meet our favourite highway, the Stuart, later on.

Vegetation was still dense, interrupted by blackened patches and imposing termite mounds.

We crossed South Alligator River, one of the few continuously water-bearing rivers in the Top End. Note: there are no alligators in Australia, although they are relatives of the crocs. But, when the river was named, people didn’t distinguish between crocodiles and alligators.

Another water-bearing, broad river we crossed was the Adelaide River, where you can go on a cruise to see the „jumping crocs". They attract them with meat as bait, and the crocs will jump high out of the water to grab the meat. We didn’t feel like going on such a cruise, though.

In the Adelaide River Wetlands, we saw thousands of birds and, finally, some water buffaloes.

In Darwin, we met civilisation again – without enthusiasm. We loved our nomadic live of the past two weeks. Just the thought of staying in a hotel is too much to bear!!! Anyway, we checked into the hotel, then returned the campervan and were praised for being ‚good customers‘, as our van didn’t have so much as a scratch. Budget’s balance of the past week: 10 campers with kangaroo accidents; one guy had lost both (!) keys to his camper; and one tragic accident between Pine Creek and Jabiru, involving an overturned camper and two seriously wounded passengers, who were both still in intensive care, with head and spine injuries.

In Darwin’s pedestrian mall, we discovered a nice, rustic restaurant, the „Hog’s Breath Café". Their food is excellent, the interior nicely and rustically decorated, including a souvenir shop (like the Hard Rock Cafés). Only handicap: they close at 11 p.m.

The short walk to Lamaroo Beach proved to be a flop: it’s too rocky to enjoy. So we returned to the numerous souvenir shops of Darwin, and deposited 9 films for development.

We then decided to walk to Mindil Beach, which is quite nice. It took us about half an hour to get there, but we had foolishly not taken anything to drink. In this dry climate, you can literally feel moisture being sucked from your body. Claudia could only bear the thirst for another hour, then she felt like Quasimodo („Water!!"). We took the bus back to our hotel, a 5 minutes‘ drive for AUD 1 each). After fuelling up on about a gallon of water, we picked up our now developed films, settled down with ice-cold beers on the porch of a cosy pub and looked at the pictures. The sheer number of them (36x9, you figure it out), sparked the unveiled interest of some tourists at the table next to ours.

We had our dinner once again at the Hog’s Breath, which was crammed this time, but unfalteringly offered excellent food and an outstanding service. We had our first Barramundi – de-li-ci-ous! Too bad that they don’t sell it in Europe L .

P.S.: This morning, we originally wanted to take the bus to Mindil Beach. After searching around for the right bus stop, we asked a passer-by. He joined us in our vain search for a couple of minutes, then apologized politely for not being able to help us, saying that he was from out of town, too – from Adelaide. Never have we met people that were on average as polite and helpful as Australians.

We had breakfast at the Confetti Café, served by an outstandingly nice waitress (well, at least that’s what Torsten thought J ).

Because of the strong wind, we cancelled our sunbath at the beach and decided to lighten the burden of our wallets in the souvenir shops, before walking to Indo-Pacific Marine. The displays feature the first „reef in a tank" worldwide. The walk wasn’t that nice, as we had to make a detour past industrial plants due to road constructions.

But the reef was worth the walk, a true visual delight. Actually, they have a number of small aquariums plus one large tank. For 15 years now, they have neither changed the water in that tank nor fed the fish, as it contains a working, living, tiny ecological system. Is that amazing or what?

One of the inhabitants, a small reef fish called Mr Bubbles, comes up to the surface, swimming on the side, to take a close look at the tourists. Not that you could that natural behaviour, but he’s charming nonetheless!

One of the employees there gave us the good advice to take a shuttle bus (kind of a collective taxi) to go to Mindil Beach and see the Mindil Beach Market, held once per week. Flat rate: AUD 2. One of many good advices for ‚everyday life‘ we received from locals Down Under. At the market you can see all kings of food stands featuring international cuisine (including „Poffertjes", those small, Dutch pancakes, which Claudia knew from the Christmas bazaar in Bonn, but Torsten didn’t, as he comes from another part of Germany), souvenir stands, pony riding, arts and crafts… you can even get a massage, if you want.

We took another shuttle bus back to the hotel (they basically drop you off wherever you want). Great service!

Guess where we went for dinner? Yeah, right: Hog’s Breath. They already treated us as regulars. For digestion purposes, Claudia had a whisky and Torsten his first Bundaberg (Bundy) rum. General astonishment as he ordered it straight. The barkeeper himself came to our table to make sure that he didn’t want it on the rocks or with coke. Bundy rum has a mellow taste, almost like a good, old whisky.

We were the last patrons to leave, and the barkeeper saw us to the door or rather: the stairs (Darwin’s Hog’s Breath is on the second floor of a building): „See you later, guys!".

For all those who haven’t been Down Under yet: Aussies usually say „See you later" when leaving, instead of „Good bye".

As loyal customers, we had breakfast at the Confetti Café, and dinner at the Hog’s Breath. More and more of the latter’s crew greet us. The Mississippi Mud Cake is great! (Who cares about a million calories, anyway….J )

The day was calm and uneventful. According to the weather report, air humidity is so low, that we feared self-incineration through fast moves and thus walked leisurely (some might call it shuffling).

The only effort we made today was to check out the location of Doctor’s Gully, the place where you can feed wild fish, mainly snappers and catfish.

We spent two and a half hours completely motionless at Mindil Beach. Adjacent to it is a marina.

On the spur of the moment, we rented a small car for the day after tomorrow, for an excursion to Litchfield National Park.

Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. No unnecessary movements. Breakfast at the Confetti’s. Dinner at Hog’s Breath, looks like every single waiter knows us by now. Claudia had a scare before leaving: she couldn’t find her waist bag. Frantic search. It had just slipped between the wall and the wooden bench.

This morning, we looked at the handful of buildings Cyclone Tracy left over. Tracy hit Darwin on Christmas Eve of 1974, leaving behind a mass of rubble where there used to be a town. The people staid nonetheless and rebuilt their town.

Today’s lazy episode took place at Mindil Beach, as usual.

Funny incident: we had dropped off our last film for development. You think that’s neither unusual nor funny? You haven’t heard the whole story yet: instead of the full film, we gave them our last spare film….

Before having a good Aussie breakfast, we picked up the Ford Festiva Eco Sport we rented.

„Our" Highway, the Stuart, took us south to Litchfield National Park, where we saw among other natural beauties 6 (SIX) meter tall termite mounds!!!!!! Even more amazing is the fact that they were built by tiny, blind ants! Another tribe of termites builds flat mounds (reminding of tombstones) in north-south direction; aptly called Magnet Termites.

Litchfield National Park mainly features beautiful waterfalls nestled in a hilly countryside.

Florence Falls: you can swim in there. No crocs.

Close by are the Bluey Rock holes, interconnected waterholes, in which you may swim, too. Quite a lot of people did when we were there.

At Tolmer Falls we did not only have a nice view to the falls themselves, but also across the open plains to a big bushfire. Our assumption that it is was a wild one, was confirmed in the evening’s TV news. At Tolmer Falls, you can find rare bats (Ghost Bats, Orange Horseshoe Bats), Short Ear Wallabies and Olive Pythons. But most likely you won’t see any of them. We didn’t, either.

Wangi Falls drop into a large, natural basin, which is also used as a pool. They put up nets or something to keep Crocs out.

On the way out we saw two water buffaloes in the pasture of a station.

We concluded the day with feeding wild fish in Doctor’s Gully. That is a fenced-off terrain, where different species of wild fish come each day at high tide. You pay an entrance fee of a few dollars, which includes white toast to feed the fish with. As you are in the water up to your knees, you can count on getting wet. Claudia got a good dipping of her jeans shorts and the fringe of her T-Shirt J .

Our last day Down Under L .

We bade farewell to Mindil Beach at low tide. Hundreds of hermit-crabs were crawling around. After baking in the sun for 3 hours, we returned the beach to the locals (yes, we were the only foreigners, except for some US soldiers heroically swimming in the sea, regardless of sharks and crocs and all those other, frightening animals, just waiting for tourists as a snack in between J J ).

Humidity was at 19% today.

For the last time, we had dinner at the Hog’s Breath L L . The crew offered us two beers as a farewell present. We were touched, swear to God!!!

We talked for quite a while with one of the waiters. After having compared Australia and Belgium (we are German, but live in Brussels) in size, he was genuinely astonished that Belgium was a sovereign country. They have stations in Oz larger than that….

That was it, our stay Down Under – we hate to leave. We have come to love the country and its people. It was the first, but hopefully not the last time, we came to Australia.